Prior art vertical blinds and drapery do not consist of only soft, pliable, ordinary fabric. For example, some vertical blinds use a vinyl or an aluminum backing member which is inherently stiff and does not fray. However, such vertical blinds are of limited usefulness as their decorating appearance is unacceptable in many instances.
Another type of vertical blind is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,273,781 to Shu. This vertical blind is produced by dipping a fabric into a stiffening compound. A couple of problems associated with dipping the complete fabric is that the entire surface becomes excessively hard and/or stiff and, in the inventor's experience, only solid color fabrics may be dipped--the color of patterned fabrics will generally "run" or spread in an undesired manner.
Another type of vertical blind comprises a fabric laminated to aluminum or some other similar rigid support surface. One disadvantage with this design is that the resulting blind tends to be overly stiff which, in turn, affects the blind's appearance. In addition, this blind is expensive to produce and, if a variation in the width of the blind is desired, this is difficult and expensive to achieve because the aluminum or other rigid backing member also must be cut along with the fabric.
Another drapery technique is to use a plastic backing member and a pair of edging members for each vertical blind strip. Presumably, any type of fabric may be used in this technique, however, the resulting blind is still overly stiff and the plastic edgings are visible. Both of these disadvantages detract from the general acceptability of blinds made in accordance with this technique.
Finally, vertical blinds of the type disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,303,760 to Perez employ a fabric covering over existing vertical blinds. Again, as with the above discussed prior art designs, the resulting blind tends to be overly stiff and bulky thereby detracting from its appearance and acceptability.